This was originally supposed to be much shorter...and simpler... I really don't know how I feel about the turnout.
For the prompt practical
P.S. these one-shots are not meant to be connected, I'm not sure if that's clear or not
Enjoy!
~Mim
Treacle Tart
"Pass the treacle tart will you Evans?" asked the person sitting beside Lily Evans.
Lily, knowing full well who had just addressed her, slowly turned towards one James Potter and took in his stuffed mouth, the grease around his lips and the speared steak in his right hand.
"How many times must I explain to you how revolting it is when you talk with your mouth full? I don't want any of your half-chewed food to land on me."
Potter swallowed enormously and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. The tart?"
Lily shook her head, but pushed the tray towards him anyway. "Here. I don't know how you eat that stuff, but whatever."
She turned back towards her own delicious pudding.
"Hang on," Potter interjected abruptly.
"What?" Lily asked exasperatedly.
"Did you just say you don't like treacle tart?"
"Ye-es," Lily acquiesced.
Her words caused Potter to, essentially, explode.
"What!" he exclaimed. "How is that possible! Treacle tart is the greatest food in the entire universe!"
"That is an opinion," Lily said primly. "And a rather shoddy one at that."
"Shoddy?" Potter repeated faintly. "Remus. Remus! Remus, please tell Miss Evans here treacle tart is food from the gods!"
Remus grinned from behind his porridge. "Mind, I can only base this off of fifteen years of being alive, but yeah I would say treacle tart is a gift to mankind."
"Well I'll have you know that I have sixteen years worth of knowledge at my disposal, and I don't like treacle tart," Lily declared.
"Oh, what a surprise. Another reference to her age," Mary snorted from her other side.
Lily swatted her arm. "I do not make a lot of references to it!"
"Yes you do," Remus, Potter and basically everyone in their vicinity chorused.
Lily pouted. "Sorry I'm excited about my birthday," she grumbled.
"Have you ever even tried treacle tart?" Potter asked suspiciously.
"Yes!" Lily huffed. "Once. When I was ten."
"Once when you were—ugh. How can that count?" Potter cried out.
"It does okay, now leave me alone!" Lily pointedly turned away from Potter. However, she still had some glaring to do. So she settled on glaring at Mary's amused expression.
"Don't worry Lily, I'll get you to like treacle tart," James said slyly from behind her.
Lily narrowed her eyes, but she didn't turn around. "No you won't."
"Yes I will."
"No you won't."
Mary was beginning to develop a very smug smile, and it was starting to severely tick Lily off.
"Lily let's look at this practically. I am a man of strong persistence, as we both know. I can assure you, I will get you to like treacle tart before we graduate!" James proclaimed.
Feeling a pit of horror setting deep within her stomach, Lily shot out of her seat at the dining table.
"I doubt it," she said scathingly. Because even though she did know just how persistent the little bugger was, Lily continued to harbor the belief that an air of pessimism must bring down his conviction one day. And with her own declaration, Lily stormed out of the Great Hall, deaf to Mary's cries to wait up.
James Potter would not convince her of anything. Ever.
::::::
And he couldn't. Not really. Not for the rest of the term anyway.
Lily already thought he was an arrogant, toerag of a person. His new habit of shoving a slice of treacle tart in her face as he behaved as an arrogant toerag of a person only served to exacerbate her anger. It also led to many an incident in which Potter left with tart smeared all over his face. She was particularly proud of that.
And where did he get all that treacle tart from anyway?
::::::
The incident by the lake happened, as Lily's friends had taken to calling it.
She knew they didn't want to upset her by mentioning Severus's name. But she also that they were relieved that she was no longer friends with him. Mary, Alice and Marlene had never really liked him, for good reason Lily realized sadly, and so they were quite pleased by Lily staying away from him.
The three of them rallied by Lily to keep her happy, but the thing was they didn't get it. It didn't occur to her friends that she was incredibly torn up about the whole thing. Of course Lily knew she had made the right decision, but that didn't make it easy. She had been best friends with this boy for eight whole years. But Lily couldn't quite put her feelings into words, and she knew her friends wouldn't understand anyway.
This was why, five days after the incident, the Gryffindor common room was occupied by Lily Evans at one o'clock in the morning.
She was blankly staring at the embers in the fireplace, trying to sort out her thoughts. Not that she was succeeding. She was tired, but she couldn't sleep. It was awful. As she mulling over this vicious cycle, Lily heard the dull clunk of someone putting an object on the wooden table beside her.
The person shuffled around behind her, before they cleared their throat.
"Ahem, um, hey Lily," an annoying familiar voice mumbled from behind her.
James Potter. What was he doing? How did he always know where she was?
But Lily was much too tired and melancholy to voice these thoughts aloud. Instead she continued to determinedly stare blankly at the fire place.
"Listen, I know you've been avoiding me lately, and I get that you're upset with me and stuff. But I just need to say something," Potter paused as if expecting a retort from Lily, but she said nothing. "Alright. Well. I just…I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. For everything. I was acting like a total arse that day by the lake, and well, I guess what happened happened partly because of me. If I hadn't provoked Sn-ah, him, then he probably wouldn't have said that. And even though I'm really glad you've ended things with that git—not that it's any of my business who you choose to be mates with—I know you're probably feeling awful about it. Since you've been friends with him for so long and all. And I know that when friends of yours do stupid, horrible things, you're torn between your friendship and their actions. And sometimes you can't deal with their actions any more, and you have to call of the friendship. It's not easy. Because when you're friends with someone you really care for, you can't bear to be away from them, but sometimes…sometimes it's for the best. So. Erm. I'm sorry that you had to choose to call of the friendship. It can't be easy. Yeah. And uh, I thought this might make you feel better since it helps me."
Lily heard Potter tap the table.
"Bye Lily," Potter mumbled. She heard him race up the boys dormitories as if she was going to chase him or something.
Lily had no such intentions. She was rooted to the spot, completely frozen by what was apparently a very heart-wrenching, remorseful speech by James Potter. Never in all their years of schooling had James Potter ever apologized to Lily before. Not once.
When Lily was finally able to regain her motor functions she whipped around her chair to make sure Potter wasn't still standing there and this was all some weird prank or something. But he was gone. She looked at the table and saw a piece of treacle tart topped with a cherry sitting innocently on the table.
And for some reason, seeing that awful dessert Potter had been shoving in her face for the past four months emitted a laugh from Lily. A real, genuine laugh from deep within her. Because even though James apparently had this ridiculously sensitive side, he was still a persistent little bugger, and Lily needed this reminder of reality. She appreciated it. And even though she didn't eat it, she did write thanks but you can have it on a scrap of paper and set it on the tart before casting a charm on it to keep it from spoiling.
Because, well, there's no need to let a perfectly good dessert go to waste. It can't be that bad.
::::::
When Lily walked into Transfiguration on a bright sunny morning, she saw ESSAY DUE written in large letters on the board. For a brief second, Lily panicked. Did she put her essay in her bag this morning? A quick check revealed that she did in fact shove the essay in this morning on her way to class.
"Good morning class," Professor McGonagall greeted as she swept into classroom "I trust you've all written your essays on Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration? You can turn in your essay on that basket on my desk."
There was a flurry of movement as the forty Gryffindor and Ravenclaw sixth year students hurried to drop off their essays.
"Shame about that first exception eh?" James Potter said in Lily's ear.
Lily jumped about a foot in the air.
"James Potter!" She yelped. "What is it with you trying to kill me?"
James gasped. "I would never dream of committing such an atrocious act! The idea of a world without Lily flower! The horror! The dreadfulness! The—"
"What do you want?" Lily cut in, struggling to contain her grin.
James grinned saucily, easily noting her poorly concealed amusement. "I just wanted to let you know that if there wasn't an exception to transfiguring food out of thin air, I would make a treacle tart for you whenever you wanted."
"Treacle tart again?" Lily groaned. "When will you drop this convincing me rubbish?"
"Never," James said solemnly. And in his eyes was a promise.
Lily just smiled and shook her head at him.
::::::
He did not drop it all through sixth year.
He didn't bring it up constantly of course; nothing like his aggravating pestering of fifth year. It was more sporadic. Every now and then, James would pop up with a plate of treacle tart and a cheesy grin on his face. Or at dinner if Lily would ask him to pass her something, he would always be sure to pass along a slice of treacle tart with it. He once whipped out a piece during a Herbology lesson, causing the extremely sensitive Tuttingthorns to react violently against its smell.
The end result of that was twenty points lost from Gryffindor and a rather smug Lily. She said I told you so at least twice. James scowled.
But no matter how much James pleaded, cajoled or begged Lily to just try the damn thing, she refused. It was the principle of the thing really.
Lily Evans was not a woman who was easily swayed.
::::::
"This might be me just overanalyzing things," Marlene began while she and Lily were studying in the Library one day.
"It probably is," Lily assured her with a grin.
Marlene rolled her eyes. "I was saying that I think you're too scared to try the treacle tart."
Lily looked at her friend in befuddlement. "What? How can I be scared about eating dessert?"
"I think you're taking the treacle tart as a metaphor for your relationship with James. You've already warmed up to him. But if you agree to try the treacle tart, you're actually accepting the fact that you really do like James. Perhaps more than you let on," Marlene explained sagely.
"So what you're trying to tell me is that instead of the very simple reason of me refusing to eat treacle tart because it is disgusting and I don't like it, you think I am refusing James' offer to eat a piece of dessert because I'm unconsciously using it as a metaphor for our relationship?" Lily summarized sarcastically.
Marlene beamed. "Exactly."
Lily huffed in exasperation.
"Lily, I know you. And I see you talk to James. You have a lot of fun with him around, but you're always a little bit distant. As if you don't want to taste the feeling of having a legitimate relationship with him. Taste? Get it? Oh, I'm good," Marlene chuckled.
Lily did not deign this with a response.
::::::
Lily got off the train at the end of the term with a nostalgic smile. She was glad summer was finally here, but this would be the last summer before she was done with school forever. It was frightening to imagine.
"Our last summer of childhood," Alice pronounced, voicing Lily's thoughts.
Lily shook her head. "Crazy," she breathed.
"What are you two birds sobbing about?" Marlene demanded in an exuberant voice. "Summer's here!"
"Nothing," Alice laughed. Marlene's excitement was infectious.
Lily grinned as well.
"Hey Lily!" James called, appearing beside her.
"Hey James," Lily greeted cheerily.
James smiled at her in silence before his eyes widened. "Oh! I got you something!"
"What? Why?"
"To celebrate summer silly!" James held out his hand towards her. it was empty.
Lily looked at him warily. "What—"
Suddenly a plate of treacle tart appeared in James hand.
Lily laughed in astonishment. "You just Summoned that didn't you? Oh Merlin, James. When will you stop?"
James grinned bashfully. "Do you want to try some?" he asked hopefully.
"James," Lily sighed, half-amused, half-exasperated. "No matter how hard you try, you can't get me to eat that horrid dessert. Sorry."
Was it just her, or did James look weirdly disappointed?
"Thanks for the offer though," Lily added sincerely, trying to cheer him up without quite knowing why. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
"Enjoy your summer," she said with a grin.
"You too," James murmured, returning the hug.
"See you soon?" Lily asked as she walked back towards her friends.
James winked.
::::::
Lily shook herself awake for the tenth time and groaned.
"How long have we been studying?" She asked James groggily.
James rubbed the back of his neck as he checked his watch. "Ugh. Half past one."
Lily scrunched her eyebrows together. "Wait. What? Half past one? How have we been studying for so long?"
"I dunno," James groaned.
"I hate Transfiguration," Lily growled. She flopped back on her chair and let her head hang over the edge. The heads common room looked so funny upside down.
"It's not that bad," James insisted.
"Oh shut up. Just because you live and breathe the subject doesn't mean it isn't awful," Lily snapped, raising her head to glare at him.
"Alright fine," James acquiesced, raising his hands in surrender. "No need to get touchy. What would you like to do now?"
Lily narrowed her eyes. What she would like to do is jump on top of James and snog him senseless. She had been harboring this particular desire for a few months now and it was beginning to drive her mad.
What she said was, "I dunno, eat something?"
"Great plan!" James cried. He reached across the sofa he was sitting on and pulled up a plate of dessert.
Lily watched James bring a fork and knife from seemingly nowhere and set to work on cutting his food. She did not really pay attention to what it was he was eating because she was suddenly transfixed by his hands. They looked so large and strong. What would it be like if he were to cup her face in his overly large hands and….
Lily jumped to her feet.
"I need sugar," she exclaimed.
With a sudden rush of energy, Lily swooped down and snatched a piece of James's food. She stuffed it into her mouth before James even blinked.
Lily smiled satisfactorily.
"Yeah alright, go ahead and have my food," James said after he realized what happened.
Lily smiled even more smugly. "Thanks." And she nicked a larger piece from his plate.
"This is quite good," Lily informed James when she finished chewing obnoxiously. She really needed a distraction. "What is it?"
James had been gazing up at her with a peculiar expression but at her question a smirk erupted onto his face.
For a whole minute, James did not say anything, he simply sat there and smirked at her. A whole minute.
"What?" Lily asked irately.
"That," James said in a ridiculously pleased tone, "is a slice of treacle tart."
Lily froze.
"No," Lily breathed.
"Yes," James declared smugly.
"No, no, no, are you serious?" Lily gaped at James.
James's smirk, impossibly, widened.
"That's it, I'm going to bed. This day has been taxing enough," Lily declared, stomping up the stairs to her bedroom.
She was just about to enter her room when James hollered, "I told you so!"
Lily responded by slamming the door shut.
::::::
Lily trudged over to breakfast that morning only to see all of her friends looking at her eagerly.
She hadn't even had a chance to sit down, when Marlene asked, "Well?"
"Well what?" Lily repeated cautiously, dropping onto the bench.
"How was last night?" Peter asked eagerly.
Lily narrowed her eyes at all of them. Then she leaned around Alice and violently poked James.
"What did you go and tell all of them about it for?" she demanded.
"So she admits it!" Sirius crowed.
"Sorry," James said sheepishly. "I was excited."
Lily rolled her eyes.
"Does this mean you've gotten rid of all your doubts about treacle tart?" Marlene asked with a suggestive wink.
"I don't know what you are talking about," Lily said primly.
"Oh pish posh," Mary dismissed. "You know exactly what she means and I'm sure you don't want her spelling it out in front of everyone."
Lily squeezed her eyes shut. She should've skipped breakfast. Why hadn't she had the foresight to realize what a pain her friends would've been like?
But apparently, the Marauders already were fully aware of what Marlene was referring to.
"Lily! Can I expect a Sirius Potter?" Sirius demanded.
"What?"
Remus hastily covered Sirius's mouth. "What Sirius means to say is that have you come to accept your feelings for treacle tart."
Lily pursed her lips. All of them—Remus, Sirius, Peter, Alice, Mary, Marlene and even James—were leaning forward in expectation of her answer.
"Yeah it's pretty good," Lily finally admitted with a sigh.
At her friends obnoxious cheering, she rolled her eyes once more. But as she leaned forward to grab some toast she saw James staring at her with a dazed smile on his face.
And she smiled too.
Because, well, treacle tart was actually quite amazing.